I'm not sure why page count instead of word or character count is used - feels like there could easily be external factors such as page size or typeface that are effecting this.
Bestselling books have been getting shorter
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Re: Bestselling books have been getting shorter
#12It could also be caused by authors getting better at expressing themselves succinctly.
An ancient affliction / a hopeless optimist wades in / the sound of denial.
Re: Bestselling books have been getting shorter
#13Many things are competing for people's attention combined with people's ability to stay focused[1] going down may contribute to this. This is probably to be expected as we take the discipline out of people. [1] Universities discussing whether classes should be delivered in 10 minute chunks because students can no longer stay focused for 50 mins to an hour any more.
I know a lot of teachers and have heard some pretty dire reports about trends in reading skills in students. Even the "advanced" kids are tripped up by sentences as complex as the sort that were common in juvenile literature of the postwar 20th century. This wasn't the case 15 years ago, but books that would have been unremarkable assignments back then are now very difficult for kids in the same grades. This isn't a problem with outdated vocabulary or anything like that—the trouble seems to be that they just can't follow sentences that have more than a couple simple clauses.
I dunno if that's fallout from some of the terser Moderns and their effects on popular preferences for prose structure, finally hitting in full force. Maybe? Seems like a long delay, though. I do suspect (relevantly to TFA, kind of!) some of it comes from publishers realizing how much of an advantage it is to make books hyper-palatable to their target markets, cutting anything that might be difficult. Sustained over decades, I'd expect that to gradually reduce reading skill levels. Maybe some of it's because people read way, way more amateur and otherwise very poor writing than they did before the Web and before smartphones—that actually lines up fairly well with the observations, since having home Internet access didn't break the 50% mark in the US until after 2000.
Re: Bestselling books have been getting shorter
#14I'm not sure why page count instead of word or character count is used - feels like there could easily be external factors such as page size or typeface that are effecting this.
That was my first thought. Maybe it’s not “books are getting shorter,” but “publishers are getting cheaper.” Decreasing margins, decreasing font size, etc could all explain a diminishing page count to save on printing costs.
That said, from looking into publishing, it seems like consensus is anything over 100k words (approx 400 pages) is basically unsellable unless you’re Stephen King or something. It’s not clear to me if this has always been the case.
Re: Bestselling books have been getting shorter
#15It is true that literary agents are less likely to take on a book that's "difficult" in any way, and "too long" is one of those ways. As slimy as they are, they do have a sense of what publishers want, who in turn have a sense of what readers want. And lots of people do not want to read books anymore, broadly speaking. There are too many other entertainment options.
I think fiction books that aren't extremely light reading are headed the way of classical music: a thing most people find too difficult to get into, and too dull until they've put in that effort, so it's coded as a "smart (and/or pretentious) people thing" and most folks just won't engage with it at all.
Re: Bestselling books have been getting shorter
#16I'm not sure why page count instead of word or character count is used - feels like there could easily be external factors such as page size or typeface that are effecting this.
That was my first thought. Maybe it’s not “books are getting shorter,” but “publishers are getting cheaper.” Decreasing margins, decreasing font size, etc could all explain a diminishing page count to save on printing costs. That said, from looking into publishing, it seems like consensus is anything over 100k words (approx 400 pages) is basically unsellable unless you’re Stephen King or something. It’s not clear to…
Many of the longer novels in classic literature were originally serialized, and only later compiled into the lengthy tomes we know today.
Re: Bestselling books have been getting shorter
#17I mainly buy books online and I don't really actively look at the page count before I buy a book. I can see that if you buy a book in a store you get a sense of the page count from the thickness and maybe some people dislike long books. Presumably though most books are now sold online and I wonder if other people do not check the page count either. I therefore wonder about the author's conclusion that it's reader dri…
My speculation is that shorter books are read more often to the end and are recommended more often and more positively.
Recommendations that I get from short books often come with the added argument ”and it’s so quick to read, you will finish it in a week”.
Accordingly, when the recommended book is very long, it always comes with the caveat ”it’s long, though, worth it, but long”
Re: Bestselling books have been getting shorter
#18Many things are competing for people's attention combined with people's ability to stay focused[1] going down may contribute to this. This is probably to be expected as we take the discipline out of people. [1] Universities discussing whether classes should be delivered in 10 minute chunks because students can no longer stay focused for 50 mins to an hour any more.
I know a lot of teachers and have heard some pretty dire reports about trends in reading skills in students. Even the "advanced" kids are tripped up by sentences as complex as the sort that were common in juvenile literature of the postwar 20th century. This wasn't the case 15 years ago, but books that would have been unremarkable assignments back then are now very difficult for kids in the same grades. This isn't a…
To my eyes schooling and academia have been trending toward "passing everyone" and not so much about educating and getting the kids to reach their academic potential. What we vulgarly call "dumbing down" of things. It looks like it dovetails with Bush's policies, or it could be part of a wider societal trend precipitated by mass/crass media, the emergence of texting as an acceptable mode of communication as well as terseness being seen as "alpha" (Jobs and Bezos being examples). Presumably society will adapt and us adapt back.
On the other hand, I will look forward to the comfort of not having to hear adolescent takes on Nietzsche or Kant.
Re: Bestselling books have been getting shorter
#19I wish longer books would take advantage of shorter chapters. I generally tend to read to the end of a chapter, so if one takes me longer than an hour to work through, I find it more fatiguing than chapters that take 10-20 minutes.
EDIT: I realized my thought was incomplete: I find the longer chapters more fatiguing than the short ones, even if I read for the same duration overall.
Re: Bestselling books have been getting shorter
#20To be fair some of these books can be a blog post. Padding out the wazoo.